You can find amaro, a 13th-century wellness tonic, at your local martini bar.
If the Aperol Spritz ruled the summer, Negronis are certainly making a competitive play for fall and winter bar trends. A boozier cousin of the spritz — but just as distinctly Italian — the punch-colored cocktail is a blend of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari. Unlike the sweet and floral Aperol Spritz, the Negroni flavor tends to smack you in the mouth. But the two drinks share something in common: They both contain an amaro, a type of liqueur, and have a strangely medicinal past.
“Amaro means ‘bitter’ in Italian — the plural is amari — and it’s a category steeped in Italian history, even the ones that are made elsewhere,” says Pete St. Peter, the beverage director at the Capri Club in Los Angeles, an award-winning amaro bar.
Because the liqueurs are made through various combinations of herbs, roots, and vegetables, flavor profiles of amari can vary widely from floral to alpine to deeply vegetal (the amaro Cynar, for example, is made from artichoke). “All that’s required is that they include three elements: herbs, sugar (or some sort of sweetener), and a bittering agent,” says St. Peter.
Not unlike the digestive bitters now sold in wellness sections of Whole Foods and Erewhon, when various amari first appeared on the market (Campari in 1860 and Aperol in 1919), they were often sipped solo — either to settle the stomach after a meal or, as spritzes, to stimulate the appetite before a meal during Italy’s much-loved aperitivo hour. (The word “aperitivo” comes from the Latin word aperire, meaning “to open.”)
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Using an amaro to stimulate digestion is one thing, but the liqueur was originally invented for use as literal medicine that would treat a laundry list of diseases. “The first amaro was made in the 13th century in monasteries so monks could preserve the herbs they used for medicine longer,” says St. Peter, “In fact, the amari were medicine for pretty much every ailment.”
Today, Fernet-Branca, an intensely herbal amaro with notes of licorice, is often sold in bars and breweries in miniature bottles — patrons take one shot to kickstart digestion at the end of the night. But the earliest Fernet-Branca bottles read: “[Fernet] benefits the stomach, promotes digestion, strengthens the body, overcomes cholera, reduces fever, and heals those suffering from nervous weakness, lack of appetite, sickness, or tapeworms.”
So, how much of the medicinal argument for amari is true?
Scientifically, the use of herbs for digestion and other gastrointestinal issues has been studied, though less than you might expect. A 2020 study found that an herbal formula consisting of peppermint oil, curcumin (the primary bioactive substance in turmeric), slippery elm, and aloe vera improved gut health for “adults with digestive disorders.” Back in 2011 and 2016, two different studies found that licorice root benefitted digestion. But it’s important to note that the results of these studies were based on the herbs themselves, not amari.
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“I won’t tell you that an amaro is ‘good for you’ — it’s booze,” says St. Peter. “But I will say they taste great, and when I end a big meal with an amaro, I feel like I will have a better night. But of course, the placebo effect is real.”
St. Peter also offers a word of caution. “Amari were always intended to be enjoyed in a single, small dose either before or after a meal,” she says. “As they’ve become more popular, many people will come in [to the Capri Club] and drink [amaro-based drinks] and even spritzes all night long. Because of the sugar, that’s way out of control. I can’t prove that amaro helps with digestion, but I can guarantee that if you do that, you’re going to have a hangover tomorrow.”
Reminder, medicine is also poison — it just depends on the dose.